Therapy
by Starcrossed Butcher
Summary: The Inquisitor is gone, and those he left behind are still hurting. Everyone could use a little therapy. Bull x Dorian. Probable oneshot. Past Bull/m!Inquisitor and Dorian/m!Inquisitor. Major Character Death.


Once, The Iron Bull would never have been seen drinking alone. Between his compatriots in the Chargers, his colleagues of the Inquisitor's inner circle, or even some giggling, enraptured barmaid Bull's had his eye on for the night, it was simply not done. Times have changed.

"Keep them coming, katari," he grunts, and Cabot nods his assent. Bull doesn't have the heart to tell the dwarf what it really means, but damn it, with the tolerance his large frame accords, he's been _gulping_ down White Shear for days (he thinks), and if the perceived exotic air keeps it any cheaper, then, the novelty is really win-win.

Of course, he's seen some of the others in the tavern. Sera, Cole—he'd had to sternly order him to stop trying to make it, all of it, better—and surprisingly, Cassandra. Even Lady Vivienne had graced the bar with her presence, perched tall and straight on a stool, turning an uncharacteristically soft eye on Bull, then, asking the bartender for something Orlesian and strong. After a while, though, his own dark corner of the bar has become occupied only by him. And as he knocks back another pair of shots and signals Cabot, he is certainly fine with that.

Tonight—he is pretty sure it's night—the only familiar face Bull hasn't seen come to try to share the liquid therapy appears, red-faced and unsteady on his feet.

"Dorian," Bull greets with a smile, raising his freshly topped glass to the mage. "You know, most wait until they've actually gotten to the bar to get shitfaced."

"Oh, piss off," comes Dorian's far too angry reply, but in that anger, he falters, his next words failing to make it past his tonsils before losing their nerve.

But Bull has this particularly contingency plan worked out. Turning away, he grunts, again, "The bottle, katari," and puts down what is quite certainly enough gold for this, oh, so earthly desire. Cabot hands said bottle to him and sweeps the gold into a hefty sack that might be solely Bull's as-yet unaccounted tab payoff. Bull gives the bleary-eyed and ragefully trembling Dorian a curt nod before making off hastily to his quarters on the far corner of the ramparts.

Dorian, for his part, growls, "No, no, no, you don't," and gives chase, close on the wide-paced heels. "You don't get just to walk away from this."

Bull doesn't pause a moment, merely saying, "But somehow, my feet keep taking steps, and I keep moving further and further _away,_" as he marches across the darkened grounds of Skyhold.

The other man has finally found his tongue, it seems, as between his fight for balance and keeping up, he retorts, "Would that you'd step right off world's end, but if you aren't going to indulge _that_ fantasy, you'll humour me, here."

"If it's fantasy you're looking for," Bull says, as they come to his apartment door and he pulls it open by the great bronze ring, "I'll have to, ah, _indulge _you some other time. I've promised tonight to this—"

If the skull-tipped staff slamming the door shut with a crackle of electricity is any show, Dorian isn't hearing it. "No," he shouts, "Now."

Bull snorts but turns to face him, to meet his eyes with a level expression. "Fine. Speak."

The shorter man turns his staff down, but with his free hand, he grabs violent hold of the straps of Bull's pauldron tight in his fist. "You. _Stole_ him. From _me_."

Bull wishes he'd had slightly less to drink. The twitch in his face at the mention of the Inquisitor is clearly a sign of his lack of control and reveals far too much.

Dorian continues, "After Adamant. When we came back from the Fade, he wasn't the same." He inhales like he's broken the water's surface just before he'd have drowned and it betrays the disingenuity of this wrath. "You _stole_ him, you bastard." Dorian breaks, throwing his eyes down, but failing to choke back the initial sob as he falls against Bull.

Bull, with a roar, takes Dorian's robe front in both huge hands and hoists him up, up, until he is barely an inch from his face. "I didn't stole shit, Bas Saarebas," he snarls, "Kadan knew things would play out this way, and he was, oh, so nobly trying to spare you the pain of losing him." He chuckles bitterly. "A courtesy he clearly didn't extend to me."

Dorian's staff thumps into the moonlit grass as he tries fruitlessly to pull himself out of Bull's grip, gritting his teeth and grunting out, "For all the damned good it's done." Another deep-chested gasp, and he finally stops fighting. When he speaks, the words tremble on his breath. "Him gone, like this..." he says, "It hurts just the same, whether he'd been there or not."

Bull's face twitches, again, and he watches a single teardrop roll from the corner of Dorian's eye. "I know," he says, softening and lowering Dorian back to the ground. A quick calculation and Bull presses his lips against the mage's, and when there's no resistance, his hands go from tangled in robes to gripping hips.

Dorian, for his part, shuts his eyes and swallows another sob, but quickly brings his hands to Bull's jaw to pull it forward and deepen the kiss, Bull parting lips and invading Dorian's mouth like a berserker. They wrestle between lips for a few long, increasingly frantic moments, before, ever breathless, Dorian pulls back and practically mewls, "I need this."  
>Bull only pants briefly, then, jerks his head at his door and mutters, "Inside."<p>

The door is flung open and two flailing, disrobing entities stumble toward the large yet modest bed in the far corner of the apartment, and once there, the larger of the two breaks the clashing of mouths and chagrinned teeth to shove the smaller onto it, climbing on top to resume the assault. Though Bull's armor has been flung into an adjacent corner and Dorian's robe has gone Maker knows where, both have managed to make it into bed with their pants, though both arousals are quite prominent through them.

Dorian is quick to address this by palming Bull through his loose trousers, but Bull simply responds by grinding his erection—and Dorian's hand, to an extent—against the mage's, slowly, deliberately, firmly. The Tal-Vashoth thusly draws from his lips a cry that encourages Bull to kiss his neck, rather than his mouth, once, twice, thrice, onward, murmuring, "Yeah, let me hear you," between suckles and nibbles and licks, "Let them all hear what I'm doing to you, Pavus."

All the while, Bull rocks himself into Dorian's loins, and he responds while fulfilling these commands, whimpering, keening, gasping as he thrusts his need into the heat of The Bull's cock with surging abandon. The combined force of their mutual ministrations results in the creaking of the wooden frame of Bull's bed and the knocking of its headboard against the stone walls.

Wordlessly, they agree: neither of them are shooting for longevity. Dorian quickly finds his release, hot and sticky within his trousers, and Bull redoubles his own efforts to follow not long after. They return to fevered kissing as they kick off their respective boots and finish undressing, after, with Bull attempting to placate Dorian and Dorian trying to distract from the tears that are now trickling somewhat freely down his cheeks. Once they've stripped, Bull uses a dry patch on his pants—not a large once, it seems, Dorian thinks off-handedly—to wipe them both off, then, tosses them to join his armor and boots.

When they've both cooled considerably, winding down to Bull running a large hand through his obscenely mussed hair, Dorian whispers a sodden, "I miss him so much," crying while being held close to the other's chest.

"I miss him, too," Bull replies, honest. "Stay, if you need."

Dorian tenses. "I... I shouldn't."

Bull shakes his head. "I've missed sharing a bed with someone for longer than half an hour." He sighs, then, softens. "Please?"

It takes a quiet moment, but a shaky nod is made and Bull's hold tightens.

A loud knock at the door and a voice that shouts, "Get up! Damn it, Chief..." rouses Bull from his slumber. He's quite alone in his bed, though the sun seems to have barely risen above the horizon, and Bull groans at this revelation. He barks out an "Open the door, Krem," and once his subordinate has done so, he barks further, "What do you want?"

"Chargers business, Bull." Krem straightens up, though the former Ben-Hassrath sees through him immediately, "Ferelden Noble out of Denerim wants us to clear out a clan of Giants that's taken up residence in his back yard. Get this: apparently, one of the younger ones has been flirting with two of his daughters—"

"Bull shit, Krem."

"No, really. Two of the girls."

Bull scrubs a hand wearily over his face. "What's this really about?"

For a while, Krem just fixes him with a stern, pained expression. Then, he tries, "The boys—I, we, all of us... We're worried about you, Chief."

Fair enough, Bull figures. He fucked up. "I'm fine."

"No!" Krem yells, stomping his foot. "Maker damn you and your pride." Krem marches toward Bull, who draws up, and bellows, "You saved my life, Bull, and I'll be damned if we saved the bloody world so I could let you spend the rest of yours in the bottom of a bottle of rotgut."

Bull breathes deeply before replying, soft, "You've returned that particular favor many times over, Kr—"

"No! That's not..." Krem grumbles, shaking his head. "It was more than just taking out a couple of assholes for me, Bull."

"More than a couple, yeah, but go on."

"You..." He stumbles, clears his throat, then, continues, "You gave me a life to live after I'd lost mine. I can't repay that, but if I'm going to try, it can't be this way."

Bull stands. "I understand, Krem." He reaches out to clap a hand heavily onto the merc's shoulder. "And thanks. Truly."

Krem nods, then, turns to leave, calling over his shoulder, "So, put some pants on, Chief, unless you're going to use that thing to distract the Giants. We've got a job."

The Giants are surprisingly therapeutic. A week—as he learns it's been—of trying your best to get hammered cheap is rather regretful when you try to get right back into the swing of a greatsword that's bigger than you and might weigh as much through the leg of something that could literally eat you for its actual lunch, but that crap aside, he feels great going on a job with his Chargers. Great, considering circumstances. When Dalish is hurling one of those "arrows" that looks suspiciously like lightning, he can swear he almost sees—but of course, it's not.

He figures this will continue to happen, or perhaps worries that it will. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, this is the first time Bull has ever lost someone he's cared so much for. When he looks to his closest men, _his_ Chargers, he briefly considers how akin one of their deaths would be to losing his Herald... And he refuses to allow this to continue.

When they return to Skyhold (their current base of operations, given Bull's recent significant investment), Bull climbs the steps off the main hall to the library to find Dorian leaning over a window sill staring intently yet absently at the horizon. He startles when Bull clears his throat, then, straightens quickly.

"Ah, Bull," Dorian preempts. "Never fear, you needn't knock. I'm sure the Qunari have bigger issues of culture shock, here."

"Knock?" Bull scoffs, leaning casually against a wall. "In an open room?"

Dorian huffs indignantly. "Fine, what is it?"

"I've been thinking-"

"Now, _there's_ some intrigue for Varric's next serial."

"-_Thinking _about the other night."

Dorian stiffens in a wholly separate way. "Don't be offended when I say, I've been attempting to think about that as little as possible."

Bull shrugs. "If that's where you want to go from here, that's fine." He stands and closes in until he is precisely where Dorian feels is too... close. "But you needed that. To heal. You may have sneaked out in the morning, but that side of the bed was warm when I woke up, and I know how it helps."

Dorian wants to step back, but he refuses. "Your point?"

"A good friend talked me out of my attempted drunken stupor. And..." Bull's gaze falls for a moment, but he quickly meets Dorian's, again. "Another good friend would not have wanted you or me to suffer over him like we have been."

The mage's eyes go sharp and cold, and the Qunari can feel the air start to charge with electricity. "Don't you dare bring him into this."

Bull scoffs. "He's in this. And in case you wondered, yes, he still loved you. Which is probably one of the reasons he turned to me. I felt the way I did regardless of who else he was interested in."

"Get. To. Your point."

Bull sighs. "If you need more like last time... I'd be completely open to it."

Dorian is speechless, one of those rare, sweet moments, and the larger man just grins. Bull finally leans that last bit closer to kiss him, again, pushing him gently against a book case. When he pulls back, he searches Dorian's suddenly perplected face, then, says, "I could use something like this, myself." Another kiss, this time pressed into by the smaller man, and he says, against his lips, "I can definitely see what he saw in you."

A hand comes up to Bull's chest to push him away, but gently and only a few inches away. "I—" Dorian stammers, "I don't know..." But Bull gives him a look that says, "Of course you know," and the mage sighs in defeat, hand sliding away. "Confounded barbarians. You're always so pushy." A sigh that ends in a soft chuckles. "You know, the Herald never took 'No' for an answer, either."

Bull smiles and pulls Dorian in for another kiss.

"Yeah. I know."


End file.
